An Olympic medal inlaid with a piece of the Eiffel Tower. How's that for a monumental prize?

A hexagonal, polished chunk of iron taken from the iconic landmark is being embedded in each gold, silver and bronze medal that will be hung around athletes' necks at the July 26-Aug. 11 Paris Games and Paralympics that follow.

Games organizers revealed their revolutionary design on Thursday.

By making history at the Games, Paris medalists will take a bit of France and its history home, too.

Built for the 1889 World's Fair - which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution - engineer Gustave Eiffel's tower was only intended to stand for 20 years.

Instead, it just goes on and on - thanks to a bit of rejuvenating surgery from time to time and constant care. The 135-year-old tower is a veteran of two previous Games - in 1900 and 1924, the last held in Paris.

The iron pieces embedded in the center of the Olympic medals each weigh 18 grams (about two-thirds of an ounce).

They were cut from girders and other bits that were swapped out of the Eiffel Tower during renovations and stored for safekeeping, according to Joachim Roncin, head of design at the Paris Games organizing committee.

"The concept came after a few discussions. We realized that there's one symbol known across the world, which is the Eiffel Tower," Roncin said. "We said to ourselves, 'Hey, what if we approached the Eiffel Tower Operating Co. to see if it's possible to get a bit of the Eiffel Tower to integrate into the medal?'"

They were stripped of paint, polished and varnished for their second life.

They are stamped with "Paris 2024" and the Games logo - which looks like a flame or the face of a woman with a chic bob haircut. The five Olympic rings are also stamped on the iron of the Olympic medals. The Paralympic logo of three swooshes, known as the Agitos, is stamped on the medals for the Aug. 28-Sept. 8 Paralympics.

The iron pieces' hexagonal form represents France. The French sometimes refer to their country as "L'Hexagone" - the hexagon - because of its shape.

Paris jewelry house Chaumet designed the medals. Six small clasps that hold the iron pieces in the medals are a wink at the 2.5 million rivets that bind the Eiffel Tower together.

Around the iron pieces are disks of gold, silver or bronze. They're crinkled to reflect the light, making the medals shine. Games organizers say the metal is all recycled, not newly mined.

To read the complete articles, see:
The Paris Olympics medals will have pieces of the Eiffel Tower(https://www.npr.org/2024/02/09/1230330335/paris-olympics-medals-eiffel-tower)
Paris Olympics medals are monumental: They're embedded with pieces of the Eiffel Tower(https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/paris-olympics-medals-eiffel-tower-rcna137855)